Re: G-10 Disk purchasing/drilling

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Terry Fritz" <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>

Hi Scott,

G-10 drills and machines very easily with cobalt alloy mill cutters and
drills.  They wear much faster than say milling LE, but the cutters last a
reasonable length of time.  You pay the pros more for the high tool wear and
probably the nasty dust created.  I like the titanium nitride coated cobalt
cutters the best.  High speed steel is probably not practical for more than one
quick hole (per bit!).  The electronic PC board industry uses tungsten carbide
but "I" think it is too brittle.  Sears has cobalt drill bits or places like
MSC can sell you anything you could wish for.

Band saws cut big G-10 well but just get a lot of blades and realize you are
going to use them up in the next hour ;-))  One may be able to find cobalt
toothed band saw blades these days.  There are great cobalt hacksaw blades now
that are practically indestructible and pretty cheap really (great for cutting
6-4 titanium :-)).  The teeth never dull but just eventually start falling off
if you cut a lot of titanium with them.  Lesser materials, like steel, are no
match for these hi-tech blades. 

To make a long story short, if you going to cut the hardest materials
available, you will need the hardest tools available.  One nice thing is that
cobalt drills drill wood just fine too and unless you loose or break them, they
will last forever ;-))  I "only" get cobalt tools now days...  Always wear
safety glasses with cobalt tools (even if drilling just wood) since if they do
break, they explosively shatter in nasty shards!  But they don't break easily. 
I have never had to sharpen one, but I imagine it is darn near impossible
unless you have some fancy diamond setup.

Cheers,

        Terry


At 02:24 PM 7/12/2002 -0400, you wrote: 
>
>  Also, anyone who is experienced with drilling holes through this stuff
> please let us know how it's done. 
>
> Scott Luggery
> Lugnut00-at-aol-dot-com